Progress Update - Episode 8
Added 2021-11-24 16:31:37 +0000 UTC
Yes, that says 100%. The renders are finally finished. So happy about that. I'm close to finishing photoshopping all the images too.
Started with some coding also and made good progress so far. Probably because I skipped the more difficult scenes. I'll keep those for the weekend, so I can spend more time on them. Really need a fresh head for that and not try to figure out all the routes after a 10h-working day.
I changed the font in-game. Didn't really like the one I used before anymore. And I think the new one fits better. Some may like the change, others won't. Oh well. Here's an example.
Old:

New

That was the good news. Sadly there's some bad news too.
I already timed the animations to see how they'll look like. Some look good, others okay, but there was one that was just terrible. It looked so stiff and unnatural, I had to remove it and don't use it. Pity I've put so much time into it, but not everything will work/look like intended.
I'm also not happy with the quality of some images. I've already mentioned in a previous progress update that I had to use some low-quality assets with bad textures since there aren't better ones available. While playtesting the code, I really didn't like looking at those images. And I feel ashamed I'm putting them out like that. I need to redo them at some point, but as of now, I want to be done with this episode because I'm drained.
Those aren't the only ones though. There are other images where the lighting isn't correct. Some are just too dark, others I forgot to move the light when I moved the camera, so some images have a more blue-ish tint, others more yellow-ish, ...
And I'm not even talking about the backgrounds. My PC just can't render them alongside all the other assets in a scene. So I mostly used the same blurred background. Looks terrible and I'm sorry.
I wish that was it, but there's more. The story. I'm somewhat missing the flow. It will be the biggest episode to date but it still feels rushed. It doesn't have the cohesiveness I want. It's like multiple smaller parts glued together, the pieces fit, but some of them are bend.
Once I'm done with the code, I try to fix the script here and there to hopefully make it flow better.
No more big updates from now on. if I can't guarantee the quality I want to have, there's no point. If I feel an update gets too big, I'll try to cut it somewhere.
I know all this will bite me in the butt, but I want to be 100% transparent and honest with you.
ETA: First or second week of December!
Comments
I can honestly say that this is rapidly becoming one of my fav reads, let alone one of the largest amounts of save files for the various women's paths to follow up on at a later playthrough.. god i miss those games where getting a harem meant the lack of needing to choose just one lol.. Great work, great narrative, great characters and to use the word one more time.. a Great amount of future i'm eager to see unfold.. add some music and id say its dam near perfect, in the meanwhile i just open up youtube and play the copyrite free music vids as a temp background theme.. works well for the most part
Crowangel Gaming
2021-11-26 12:21:22 +0000 UTCThank you for your honesty. Actually, I wouldn't mind an episode 8.5 next time, where you can fix the things you don't feel are right. Just like you did with episode 5.5. It could also give you time to get some proper rest during the holidays.
Keerthi Thorpe
2021-11-25 19:41:14 +0000 UTC